


That's Not Love

by softevnstan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Bottom Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Smut, Heavy Angst, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Isolation, Kidnapped Steve Rogers, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Not Canon Compliant, POV Alternating, Past Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Slow Loss of Sanity, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Stockholm Syndrome, Top Bucky Barnes, Top Steve Rogers, Torture, Violence, dark bucky barnes, obsessive Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:16:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21817234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softevnstan/pseuds/softevnstan
Summary: It wasn’t supposed to end like this. None of it was.Steve wanted to save Bucky. Desperation seeped into his bones; he simply wanted to save the man he loved from the monsters that had tied him to invisible strings and turned him into nothing more than a puppet. Steve just wanted to save him.Instead, millions of people are dead and he’s sitting in Alexander Pierce’s mansion. Strapped down to a bed.Stuck.Stuck with a Bucky that is as far from Bucky as he could possibly be. Stuck, while his friends are potentially dead, or being hunted down by HYDRA soldiers like animals. Bullets through the eyes of those who resist, because the new world is bloody and violent and Bucky controls it all with a single bark of an order.He just wanted to save Bucky.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 10
Kudos: 46





	1. Failure

**Author's Note:**

> Updates are not consistent. This is a slow descent into madness that involves breaking Steve and a corrupted Bucky Barnes. Pain ensues.

Steve awoke in a daze, lying in a bed that wasn’t his own. Everything around him felt sickly slow; every movement, even just blinking, felt like such a large exertion of strength. His chest rose and fell slowly. Vision blurred as he attempted to blink the exhaustion away, only to be greeted with an incessant ache between his eyes. A quiet groan elicited from the Captain into the room around him, only to be replied to with silence. 

**That wasn’t right.**

Sluggishly, Steve turned his head against the pillow. Shifting barely underneath the blankets that covered him, his mouth dry as if he’d been sleeping with his mouth open for days. His right eye was terribly swollen, aching just to open and close. Turning his head to the right, his bleary gaze settled onto an intravenous pole that stood tall beside the bed. Ocean eyes slowly followed the attached tube to the pole, tracing it under the soft, faded blue blanket that covered his form.

Steve shifted his right arm, but was met with resistance. Something held down his right wrist - so he attempted to raise his left. The same outcome. Only managing to shift less than an inch before something hidden halted him from moving further. If Steve wasn’t so dazed, maybe he’d feel the concern bleeding through him and see all the red flags going off. Nevertheless though, his body feels heavy and his mind is reduced to a slow honey trickle.

The captain shifts his feet.  
The only budge about an inch before resistance refuses him to move further. 

Steve is strapped down under the blanket that covers his broad form, and his head drops back into the soft pillow that attempts to lull him back into a state of unconsciousness. Eyes flutter closed, but the super soldier refuses to let his mind slip back into a blissful rest until he knows full well what’s going on. Although he may not be jerking and fighting the bonds that hold him, there’s something terribly wrong, and Steve needs answers that don’t provoke his headache.

* * *

They fought on the helicarrier at the triskellion. Shield against metal appendage; the clang and clash of the metals. Violent punches met with a staggering defense. Gunshots... His side was grazed, he recalls that much. Stabbed. His right shoulder had been stabbed by a man so faded that had become Steve's equal. Shot in the back of the thigh, in the back of his side. Bullets that tore through his poorly padded suit and left him bloody and pained. The patch of red that seeped to stain the red and white with a darker shade of crimson that it should have been, and a white hot pain that ebbed into something numb.

Steve had only had seconds. Seconds to stop millions of people some meeting an abrupt and unruly death all over the world from the clutches of HYDRA. He could hear Maria faintly over the coms, urging him along because they only had mere seconds until so many people were gone. 

  
  
_3... 2..._

He'd been so close. Steve had the chip clutched between gloved fingers until another bullet whirred through the air, right past his head, and penetrated the card. Reducing it to bits and pieces.

It was nothing compared to the sounds of explosion and hell-fire that came next. It was in that single second, Steve could hear the whole world screaming silently; and the guilt would haunt him forever. What he allowed to happen to so many innocent people, because him failing his best friend hadn't been enough. Allowing monsters to twist and break the man he loved down to nothing wasn't enough. No, millions of other people had to die as well, and Steve practically bathed in the blood of so many innocents.

The next thing Steve knew, a merciless, metal hand cradled his skull. A sharp hit forward, Steve's forehead met metal, then everything went black.

* * *

A sense of horror plagues Steve the moment he remembers. The moment it all comes back to him leaves his eyes shooting open, his lips parting and gasping for air as if it'd been sucked out of his lungs. An ache in his chest like nothing before, and an overwhelming sensation of guilt suddenly washed over the blond. He jerks upward; abdomen jolting off the mattress to try and throw himself up. Burst from his bindings, but his body still feels like it's entirely made up of lead, and reduces him to nothing but a bump against the sheets. Steve can feel the tears that sting at his eyes - his failure washing over him in full.

His chest aches.  
A dull ache that he deserves - because so many people are dead, and it's his fault for not being able to pull his part and reroute the firing targets for the helicarriers.

Everything is gone.  
Steve doesn't need to step outside to know. Everything he formerly knew is gone, instead replaced with violence and bloodshed. HYDRA won - and there's a sickening sense of defeat that nearly drowns Steve. Self-loathing seeps into his bones as his pliant body lies on the mattress, and he still isn't sure what happened upon being knocked into a state of unconsciousness. Where he's at. Who saved him. 

The blond racks his mind for answers. Wondering if he woke up somewhere inbetween and simply couldn't properly recall. If there was a chance of someone else surviving the blast who would've saved him after. Judging off the lack of feeling in the places where he was formerly busted open, Steve must be under some sort of painkiller. The IV that attaches to his inner right arm must be responsible for that - the drip leaving him sated potentially, or atleast feeding liquids into his veins to help the healing process along where a super soldier serum couldn't.

"Oh, God," Steve sobs dryly into the air of the room; his own voice rough like he hadn't spoken in a while.

How long was he even unconscious for...?

Suddenly, there seems to be a spark of hope for the questions Steve has. That he'll be given proper answers and an explanation for everything, because Steve can hear the click of a metal lock and the quiet swing of a door. The sound of shuffling along carpet, and Steve attempts to raise his head once again to look but the strain makes the nape of his neck burn and his headache makes exerting energy painful. Instead, he listens. Listens to the best of his ability as the mystery person draws closer and closer to his bed side; approaching on the right.

"You're awake... Good, there was concern that you'd lost your use..." A deep voice rumbles, and Steve **knows** that voice.

He knows the face it belongs to. Steve pinches his eyes shut tightly as he inhales and exhales with a trembling breath. Ocean eyes open just barely to see a mop of dark brown hair and a face looming over his own. A black muzzle covering the lower half of the other's face, but those cold eyes can only belong to one person. Steve isn't sure if the tears welling up in his eyes are for the lives lost or for the selfish momentary relief for who he's been faced with. The other's head blocks out the light; highlighting his edges, and maybe God is real and maybe he did send an angel for Steve like he did all those years ago as a child.

" _Bucky_..." Steve croaks.

There's a momentary silence, and the man looming over Steve has confusion flood his eyes. His brow creases, and his eyes are clouded with uncertainty for a moment before schooling expression back to something neutral. Something as cold as winter and as harsh as a blizzard.

"Who the hell is Bucky?"

_**Steve's heart drops.** _


	2. New Order

The asset had made a last minute decision. His mission was to eliminate the threat of Captain America – do the world ‘justice’ and bring ‘order’, as Pierce had told him. There would be a sense of relief once the Captain was properly eliminated, anyways. Killing the Captain meant that the asset wouldn’t be punished so severely – there’d be some means of an ‘easy’ consequence to amount for his prior failure.

Killing the Captain would mean that the asset could find a sense of reprieve; manage to avoid the hammer of cruelty until the next assignment.

It was something the asset ached for to his bones. To be finished with this – albeit the little incessant voice that screamed at him in the back of his skull. The voice that clawed and begged to be heard louder; a voice that sounded so broken and desperate despite how small and quiet it really was. The asset didn’t mention it to his handlers upon his last maintenance check. They never cared for those things, but rather how useful the weapon was and if it – he – was ready to be back onto the field if need be. The little voice wasn’t something that needed to be mentioned, so the asset hadn’t bothered to.

It would all fall according to plan. The weapon would do per instruction. Fulfil it’s – his – use, then return to cryogenic dormancy until it – HE – was needed again. Simple. Routine. Something that the soldier couldn’t properly remember but still felt like a familiar concept.

Until things changed.

The asset was made aware of Pierce’s demise. An unlikely death by the hands of Nicholas Fury – the man that the soldier had killed. Nicholas was supposedly dead. A failed assignment came back to haunt him in murdering his superior. The asset couldn’t be bothered to care. He wasn’t designed to feel such a thing. But that little voice, the same itching voice, howled in victory once the message had been relayed.

In the world of HYDRA though… _Cut off one head, another shall take its place_. It would only be a matter of time until someone else lined up to the mantle in order and took over operation. Another person to point for the soldier to shoot, and the mindless weapon to carry out his duty as the assassin he was.

Until, in those few seconds after preventing Captain America from deactivating the worldwide attack. It was only those few short, short seconds that something seemed to switch in the Asset’s head. Someone was going to take up the mantle of HYDRA. Why couldn’t the weapon do so…? Why wasn’t the asset worthy to command an army, why was he only reduced to a tool to be utilized? **Who was there to stop him, now?**

It was a split-moment decision, and it surely needed more time to be thoroughly looked into. More to lull over and plan out more thoughtfully, because what was the soldier supposed to do after that? How was he supposed to climb to the top of the hill and claim the mantle? Who did he have to mow down to do so?

He didn’t care in those seconds. He simply looked at the groveling Captain with blood seeping to stain the flag of his suit and something… clicked. _Want._ The asset wanted. For the first time in the asset’s self-aware existence, he WANTED.

_The asset wanted Steve Rogers._

Limited information was given on the target initially. The asset didn’t ever need to study his mission more than a few moments on paper. In physical combat, there had been times he was taken back by an opponent momentarily but quickly the soldier was made to adapt and overcome. Built to learn the patterns and the ticks; find the weak points and the pieces of a person left open for attack. What was guarded and what wasn’t.

There was no need to study the Captain furthermore than what was instructed. The briefing on Steve’s combat – his history with the alien invasion in 2012 that the soldier was hibernated through. It was a singular target, and the Captain was never armed with a gun. Separate the shield from the man, and it was an easy completion given that the asset was armed to the teeth with bombs, bullets, and knives. It only made sense that the Asset would prove victorious in combat. That this man would die the moment the weapon unloaded lead into his body – because even a super soldier surely couldn’t survive a shot to the heart or a graze of an artery. All it would take were a few seconds to turn one of the strongest heroes into a crumbling, bleeding mess.

The soldier had almost succeeded, it seemed. Watching the crumbling disbelief and sense of failure drown the Captain. Something that the soldier could find himself understanding – that need to accomplish his mission. Need to please those above him. Failure wasn’t an option for the either of them, the only difference between them both was that Steve’s failure was concrete and there was no undoing the damage done as the sounds of shots polluted the air outside the carrier.

Metal hand cradling the base of Steve’s skull, palm brushing across the exposed flesh of his nape. Clutching the cowl and slamming Steve’s head forward. Enough force behind the brace that even with the head gear on, it knocks the Patriot into a state of unconsciousness. It’s all the asset needs for the moment. There’s not much else Steve can do anyways with the bullet wounds violating his body and his strength bled away.

* * *

That was how Steve ended up in one of the vacant rooms within Pierce’s claimed mansion. Blood had been shed to claim the establishment, but all the same, the asset took it for himself. A shelter where Pierce had doctors on call and anyone who dare get in the soldier’s way meet the end of a barrel between their eyes.

It was a messy process. Safely escorting an unconscious Captain America onto the estate, and wiping out anyone that dare try to oppose the unhinged weapon. The asset hadn’t kept count of the amount of people he ended. His priorities were fixed in finding medical help for Rogers and settling him. It took a strenuous amount of effort, but nothing is impossible and through intimidation and silent death threats laced in, Steve was treated for his bullet wounds.

Fishing the stray bullets out of his body only to stitch him shut and wrap him up. The asset wasn’t a stranger to blood – none of it turned his stomach like it should have. None of it made him wince. None of it made him feel really anything other than a desire to have this man back in one piece so they could continue on.

The asset wanted Steve.  
Wanted him for his own.  
If the weapon were capable of feeling something as benign as love, maybe he’d classify this as such. Instead it’s simply back to the same desire that burns in his chest. Something familiar in the captain’s face when he was stripped of his cowl and his suit, instead dressed in basic wear. Soft, black pants and a white t-shirt. Injected with enough painkillers to keep the man down for a while and ebb away and lingering pain while his serum-enhanced body carried out the chore of putting him back together where the personal medical team couldn’t. Strap his body down with leather restraints; not that it could keep Steve Rogers down if he really wanted out of them. It was for the time being given that Steve’s body was too heavy and too sedated to properly support himself.

Given that the asset couldn’t sit and babysit the Captain the entire time, he instead paid attention to the cameras that Alexander appropriately placed among his own mansion. It made sense; especially since the asset had managed to slip into this man’s house before without the slightest indication. Pierce needed security. Eyes. Assure that his precious weapon wouldn’t escape and that no one else would manage to slip in and stumble upon the man. The Winter Soldier was a ghost – ghosts are not seen by the living.

Instead of being at the man’s bedside and watching him slumber, the asset takes his time familiarizing himself with their new living space. Where Steve will be staying, where the asset will take care of him. Rummaging the kitchen, searching the living room, and eventually finding himself in Alexander’s study. There was a time that the soldier remembers kneeling at the desk side until pins and needles pricked his knees. When the circulation cut short but he wasn’t permitted to move; instead remain painfully still with a collar fastened around his throat like an animal. There was a controlled shock delivered whenever the soldier would fail to hold posture. If his shoulder’s slumped, if his back was curved perfectly, if his head moved ever so slightly… Hours would be spent in positions like that. The asset was convinced they were a test of loyalty, and without fail, he would pass them.

The asset isn’t there to look at fragments of a tantalizing past, though. He’s there for one thing and one thing in particular.

It takes a few minutes of searching. Sifting through the drawers of the large mahogany desk, until tugging open a bottom drawer that the soldier finds his treasure. A clunky, thick collar. Matte black. Balanced in his palm, for the exception of the small boxes parallel to each other on the collar. Instead of a typical belt loop to keep the collar in place, this one in particular is locked together with a combination padlock. Easy to rip to pieces if there’s no electric current flowing through it – but the moment a shock is sent through the damned thing?

The asset recalls how bad it would hurt. A tingle that would progress into a searing pain that bit into the sides of his throat. Burning flesh and the gruesome smell searing his nostrils. The angry wounds it would leave. It wasn’t meant for a canine, no, it was a modified object made to control a human being like a mutt.

No… Not a human being.  
It was made for the weapon, the asset.  
The asset was not a person – not from what he’d always been told. A nameless… Thing.

The collar was a tool for correction.

The asset finds the sleek, black controller within the same drawer. Studying the items in his hand and deciding to put it to use in correction. If he recalls properly, Alexander had instilled triggers around the gates that shielded the mansion, as well. If the collar went past the premises, it would be send a series of powerful shocks into the wearer until they returned behind lines, or until the collar died. Unfortunately, the soldier was painfully aware of how the collar could go for _hours_ …

He takes the collar and controller with him. Tugging the door behind him closed securely; a small click reminding him the door is closed.

Standing in the hallway, the asset is greeted with silence. The mansion is quiet. No one roams the halls, but knowing that Steve is safely tucked away in the mansion, in his own little temporary room, brings a foreign sense of comfort to the soldier. Steve is within reach. He’s alive and he’s breathing – The asset could touch him if he chooses to.

Steve is real.  
The asset successfully obtained him…

And for the first time in his conscious life, he can do whatever he so pleases. No more handlers forcing him down – no one else to experiment on him. No one left to punish him or express cruelty for fun. No more people to smash his face against the floor until all he sees is red and is deemed unrecognizable. No more excruciating hours spent sat in a chair while his metal appendage was toyed with his internal nerves were played upon. No more people tearing him open for blood-shed and to play with his insides…

The asset – The Winter Soldier – Is _free_ …

* * *

The asset carries himself down the length of the long corridor. Eerily silent, but it’s better that way. The soldier can hear and slip into a sense of hyper-awareness. Anyone that may try to slip into his little haven and snatch control of the soldier is no longer able. The soldier won’t let anyone pluck this from him – not so soon…

His priority was checking with Steve. The man had been unconscious for about two days, now. When Winter finds himself restless, he slips into the other’s room and sits in the vacant chair at his bedside. Watches. Watches Steve rest. Studies him. The part of his golden hair, the slope of his crooked nose. The soldier feels as if he should know why it is that way, but he doesn’t. Thinking about it extensively makes his head ache, so there’s no point to needlessly cause himself a state of pain.

The world outside is chaos. So many people are dead; so much destruction ensues. But the asset doesn’t care. His only concern lies with the man on the bed – the same man from the bridge that he vaguely recalls. The one that kept uttering a name, ‘Bucky’. The asset had never been called ‘Bucky’. The asset didn’t have a name.

He was on his way to see Steve again. Find himself in the other’s familiar space and silently piece together their next steps together. Delving more into detail of what the asset intended to do. Once he conquers HYDRA, the world will be at their fingers. The asset – Winter – decides he wants Steve at his side then. The captain is a notorious opponent in battle. Having those skills would be nothing short of fruitful for the future. Steve will be Winter’s… Pet. His play-thing. Something that can be put to use when need be, on the field and off. There will be no need to uselessly treat Steve cruelly. Winter isn’t his abusers… He’ll show the Captain he other side to HYDRA, and they’ll be together.

The thought lights something up in the brunet’s chest. The normally hollow feeling being filled for once as his flesh fingers wrap around the metal lock he instilled on the door. Something Steve could easily break apart – but given the man’s current state, he wouldn’t have the energy to do so. Grasp curling around the cool metal of the bronze knob, and pushing it open to peek in.

Today, things are different than the past several ones.  
There is _movement._ He is _AWAKE_ …

“You’re awake… Good, there was concern you’d lost your use,” Winter says to fill the silence of the air – the first time he’s heard himself speak softly despite the roughness the laces his tone.

Winter had admittedly begun to grow… Concerned. Steve wasn’t waking up as quickly as the soldier intended for him to, and the brunet found himself second guessing his decision several times for split moments since bringing Steve into the security of the mansion. That maybe something went wrong; something the Captain’s serum couldn’t replenish and would render the blond useless. It would be disappointing.

Boots scuff along the navy carpet as Winter approaches Steve’s side. Metal hand finding purchase along the wooden headboard as he lowered to loom over the larger male. Steve couldn’t support his weight to sit up quite yet, so Winter found it beneficial to inject himself into the other’s line of sight. Do the work for him.

“Bucky…” A dry voice responds – and there’s _that_ name again.

“Who the hell is Bucky?”

An unsettling sense of déjà vu momentarily plagues the soldier. He shakes it off quickly as he notices the way Steve’s momentarily relieved expression bleeds into dread.

The weapon didn’t have a name.  
No.  
But he had a likeness.

The asset was created in the likeness of James Barnes. A former man to die in World War II. The asset was meant to resemble James. Walk like him, talk like him. From the way his lips curled with feigned smiles on undercover missions to the way he carried himself. All studied in footage and bits and pieces of information that the soldier had been given. The soldier was created in his likeness. Winter wore the face of a dead man.

“You…” Steve breathes so softly that Winter nearly misses it. “You, You’re – Do you not remember?” Desperation is heavy in the other’s voice. It doesn’t faze the soldier, he’s so painfully used to screams and pleas begging for life. Desperation and sorrow fall onto deaf ears with this one – the soldier isn’t affected by such measly things.

Silence is apparently a fitting answer with eyes that never part from Steve’s.

It’s then and there that Winter can study a more lively Captain. The blue speckles in his eyes, the way his lips part so delicately, the light flush in the apple of his cheeks from exertion. How alert the other had become, even in his hazed state. It’s a stark contrast to when Steve is unconscious…

A jerk draws the soldier’s attention lower. Steve’s hands attempting to pull up from the bed but restrained beneath the covers from the leather bounds. Winter doesn’t say anything initially, instead watches hands that helplessly move under the soft azure blankets and never find success.

“There’s no use in trying.” Winter murmurs thoughtlessly. “You’re sedated at the moment. You won’t get far even if you exert enough energy to break the restraints. Rest. You’ll do good to listen right now, not struggle.” Despite the softness of his tone, there’s a silent warning too when the soldier hardens his glare towards the blond.

Steve seems to partially understand, his body going lax against the mattress. Pliant and soft – Winter wonders how soft his cheeks are. If he’s warm, or cold to the touch like Winter is. Studying this man like he’s never seen a human being up close before…

“We’re going to discuss rules.”

“Rules?” Steve echoes back weakly, his brow knitting and distress filling those stormy blue eyes.

“Rules.” Winter stands straight once again, aware that Steve can no longer properly see him. “If you fail to accommodate to any of what is listed, you will be met with an appropriate punishment. You are responsible to remember these rules. They **_help_** us…”

The asset can hear the way he swallows. See the way his eyes pinch shut so his lashes kiss the tops of his cheeks, and inhales shakily.

_“Rule number one. You are no longer your own.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, kudos and comments are encouraged!!!  
> Thank you ^^


End file.
